


00.03 Purgatory - Her

by Raziel



Series: 00 The Time In Between [3]
Category: 19th Century CE RPF
Genre: Vicbourne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 17:55:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13506762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raziel/pseuds/Raziel
Summary: Takes place before Blurred Lines.





	00.03 Purgatory - Her

Victoria threw herself into married life, as she and her new husband defined it. Albert had brought companions with him, a quiet young man named George, a friend from university, and several others, lively entertaining fellows all. It was her first experience with young people her own age and no censorious supervision. Albert had George identify an unused suite of rooms in a far wing of Buckingham, and they were currently undergoing extensive renovation to George’s very specific design. The Consort currently occupied the apartment adjoining Victoria’s, and she could easily hear them long into the night. At first shy of appearing uninvited, Victoria found herself welcomed with enthusiasm and soon they all sat up until near-dawn, drinking, chatting, playing songs on the piano and singing. Her brother-in-law Ernst fit in well on his appearances, even assuming the role of chaperone when conversation grew too warm, the displays of amorous affection less inhibited than he considered proper for his very young sister-in-law to witness.

Victoria found the company of these young men quite delightful, and they encouraged her giddiness to match their own. She had not the luxury to sleep in until noon as they did so the late nights soon began to show in a weight loss her new friends considered most flattering, accentuating never-before-seen hollows under her cheekbones, a becoming lavender hue shadowing her eyes. Since Albert’s companions were themselves arbiters of all things fashionable, she embraced their suggestions on her wardrobe as well, scandalizing her old dresser by the presence of such effete _cavaliers servente_ in her dressing room.

Those who watched her metamorphosis formed their own opinions on cause and effect.

The Duchess of Kent considered the Queen’s new manner proof of a successful marriage. If her exuberance might seem a bit extreme to a more wary observer, Victoire consoled herself with the thought that if Victoria was happy in her marriage no recriminations could come to those such as herself who had pushed the match.

King Leopold of Belgium saw the burgeoning friendship between Albert and Victoria and what seemed like smiles of genuine affection and was able to shake off the worst of his suspicions that this match might fail. _Every man finds his own way after marriage, and so will Albert. The direction his desires take him are of no significance if he has Victoria’s favor--- and if they swiftly produce an heir._ The worst of his own brother’s accusations had posed the specter of annulment based on inability or unwillingness to properly consummate the marriage, and if only there was an heir, Albert would be free to indulge his real inclinations. _What more can we ask of the boy?_ Leopold thought, his fondness for Albert overshadowing any thought of what such a marriage might mean to his niece.

Viscountess Portman, Her Majesty’s Lady-in-Waiting, watched the gaiety of the Queen’s household with open curiosity. It was a spectacle to be sure, watching her formerly demure mistress romping and chasing and laughing with the abandon of a child, encouraged by her husband’s male companions and even the usually more reserved Prince Consort. Victoria almost flirted with his own brother and he seemed to regard that with benign complacency; when he occasionally exerted himself to mildly chastise his own gentlemen attendants, it was only with an admonishment to mind their manners in company. The Queen herself might be thought to be a thoroughly contented bride, exchanging fond smiles with her husband and embracing his friends, spending most of her free time in their company, at her husband’s side until dawn most nights.

Except…except…as a lady attendant, Emma Portman knew that all the time they spent together was in company and if there was activity in the marital bed, no signs were apparent. The Queen was always alone when her maids drew open the curtains each morning and roused her. Exactly half of that bed was always unmussed and the Queen, despite the changes remarked in her appearance and demeanor, never showed any of the subtle signs of lovemaking that one would expect in a previously virginal girl. _Either she takes her husband’s attentions with an uncommon degree of indifference in one so young,_ Emma thought, _or she has not in fact lost her maidenhead at all._

What Emma was sure of was that the Queen sorely missed Melbourne. Despite her show of high spirits, when any carriage arrived, when the sound of visitors in the great hall penetrated the Queen’s drawing room, she would grow momentarily rigid with expectation. In any setting her eyes scanned the room restlessly as though finding nothing to rest them on, and her every conversation, as bright and filled with girlish chatter as it might be, always seemed just a _bit_ distracted, as though some part of her attention was elsewhere.

On one visit to the home of her friend and chief confidant Emily Lamb Cowper, soon to be Emily Temple, Emma encountered William as he was leaving. He was his usual urbane self, and so she took advantage of the opportunity to speak. “When will we see you at Court again, William? It’s been weeks since you last attended the Queen.”

“Business occupies me, Emma. Governing is such hard work,” he responded with an exaggerated sigh in his fashionably languid drawl, but his gaze warned her not to persist. 

“Don’t stay away much longer, William. Young women have a very short attention span.”

“Emma, I think Her Majesty knows how to go on now. She no longer requires the daily attention of her old Prime Minister. My nephew has been serving as her private secretary, insofar as she needs one at all, mainly to draft responses to the various petitions which reach her. Soon even that will be unnecessary.”

“William, you _are_ the Prime Minister. I think, no I _know_ , it is your duty to counsel the Queen. You are ignoring duty in the service of… _personal inclination_!” Melbourne laughed, to Emma’s annoyance.

“Emma, you most certainly do not know whereof you speak, if you consider anything about this a reflection of my _inclination._ You were not unaware of the complicated nature of our friendship. I only withdraw now to allow her to find her way in her marriage without distraction. Rest assured, I know my duty only too well. It directs everything I’ve done- everything I do.”

Lady Portman pursed her lips and said no more on the subject. _Let the old fool nurse his broken heart then. Only, let him come to his senses and mend this thing on whatever terms they make before there’s a permanent breach._

Ensconced in her friend’s sunny drawing room, Emma momentarily deliberated how to broach the subject she wanted to discuss. Fortunately, Emily initiated the topic of her brother.

“Now that William has free time once more, away from the demands of the Court…he has taken up with that Norton creature again! I swear and vow, after his near escape last time, how he can be so foolish…”

“No! I had not heard that!” Lady Portman gasped. Emily filled her in on the details as she knew them.

“…and of _course_ the creature flaunts the connection. She wants not only that husband of hers but the _world_ to know. If there’s another scandal he will have to step down. He could hardly serve a young female sovereign with such a fiasco breaking over his head. And that means the Party will be out – we have not enough support to continue without William holding the thing together – and Peel and his Tories will be in.”

“Emily…dear Emily…forgive me for speaking as one who has long loved William and has only his best interests at heart…He simply _must_ return to court. He thinks the Queen’s marriage has changed things, that they can not go on as they were and that, I believe, has wounded him deeply.”

“Ah, yes…I feared as much. His devotion to the girl and hers to him quite consumed him. Dear William, so much love to give and no one to love since Augustus died. The Queen was like a daughter to him. I think he feels the loss of that most acutely.” Emily Lamb sighed, her eyes sparking with tears as she thought of her brother.

“Emily…I have been there, since the beginning. It is not as a daughter that William thinks of the Queen. And not,” she met her friend’s gaze and held it. “as a father that the Queen loves him. Perhaps you do not know that she went to see him at Brocket, quite alone, before the Princes arrived.”

“Went to see him at Brocket? I don’t understand the significance. She often visits Brocket Hall. She has her own chamber there.”

“No, Emily, that is not what I mean.” Lady Portman described the Queen’s desperate flight to the hall with Emma, in her unmarked carriage, quite unescorted. She quite picturesquely described the sparkling, determined young woman who exited that carriage, and the devastated, nearly broken girl who returned. “I know love when I see it, Emily, real romantic love, amorous love…I watched it spark and burn until it nearly devoured both of them. And then…after Brocket, where I think she declared herself and he refused her, telling her what he wanted her to think, not the truth he felt…her cousins came and suddenly everything changed overnight.”

“You think the Queen married the German because she could not marry William?” Emily gasped at the thought of her brother, at his age, seducing a teenage Queen, or, almost worse, _refusing_ his love-struck sovereign.

“I know that is why the Queen married Albert. I am sure it is only a marriage of convenience. I am Her Majesty’s chief Lady-in-Waiting, head of her household. I see her first thing in the morning. That is no true marriage, I will stake my name on it. I think she waits for William to return.”

Emily gasped at the clear implication. “You – you think the Queen wants to – but an heir would be –“

“Yes.” Lady Portman smiled, her expression laden with meaning. “I think the Prince is quite content to go on as he is, surrounded by his male companions, he a _chasseur_.  And if our little Queen has her heart’s desire...” She folded her hands, relieved to have spoken her thoughts out loud to one she knew would never harm William. Who might even dissuade him from his present course and bring him to his senses. “So Emily, as you love him, make the man see reason and return to Court before the Queen resorts to another ridiculous stratagem. She is, I warn you, a very headstrong and, if I’m not mistaking the matter, very hot-blooded young woman and will not go on in this limbo state forever.”

***

Victoria tried desperately not to dwell on Lord M’s abandonment. If she did she knew she would go quite mad. Never had she better understood his wife’s pursuit of the poet, the madness that overtook her when it seemed ‘love’ was not sufficient to describe an obsession that consumed one so entirely. _Caro had no empire to rule_ , she thought, envying that woman the freedom to pursue the object of her desire quite openly, stalking Byron in disguise, throwing herself at him in company…even letting her own blood, not in a wish for death but only to release some of the unbearable pain coursing through her veins. Victoria thought of Caroline Lamb often in her own distress, considering that perhaps the unbroken fondness and regard she’d had for her husband was even similar to her own feelings for Albert. He wanted her to be happy, as he was, and to that end tried – most delicately, to be certain – to encourage her to renew her bond with Lord M. Albert was becoming a good friend, a brother almost, with a brother’s fondness and protectiveness. She wondered whether that was why her dear, good Lord M had not abandoned his wife to the derision of a society which had excoriated her. _Perhaps at the end he did love her as a brother only, perhaps he never had the kind of passion for his wife that she had for Byron…or that I have for him._

Days were most challenging. She felt the butterflies in her stomach, anticipating his arrival on what would be the first of his visits, early in the morning, at breakfast even if he had stayed the night in his Palace bedchamber. Day after day she waited eagerly, and each day a page announced _Mr. William Cowper_. He was a pleasant enough young man, far preferable to the less polished secretary who had first appeared in his stead. Mr. Cowper was Lord M’s nephew and that alone would make him preferable to any stranger, but Victoria was drawn to him not only by the family connection but the awareness that at least, he was some direct link between them. It had almost become banter between them.

“ _And where is Lord M today_?”

“ _At Dover House, ma’am_ ,” or “ _In chambers at the House, ma’am. He sends his regards and hopes that I may be an acceptable substitute_.”

“ _We are pleased you could attend us, sir…but pray tell Lord M there is no acceptable substitute for him_.”

She enjoyed the young man’s company well enough, and he had the Whig polish and ease of manner, but nothing assuaged her craving, almost a physical need, for Lord M. If this nephew, so punctilious in his attentions, saw the shadow of unhappiness in her eyes it went unremarked as they discussed what business there was. Always she sent him away with a message, and even as she tried to make it less pleading than it in truth was, some of her growing despair seeped through, for this young man always looked at her with such _kindness_ , such sympathy, that Victoria would blush with embarrassment.

Evenings were more endurable. Albert’s companions taught Victoria to take absinthe over a sugar cube to disguise the bitter taste, and the result was a feeling like honey replacing the blood in her veins, assuaging the constant heartache as nothing else could, giving everything a warm golden glow in her mind. The young men seemed to have special insight into the sometimes confusing behavior between men and women, discussing hithero unnoticed subtleties in a amusingly caustic – and quite salacious – manner. Often, one or another of the young gentlemen would invite someone they’d met locally – in places they called _Molly houses_ , which Victoria imperfectly understood to be similar to _nunneries_. Some of the invited guests on these evenings were ladies Victoria knew with certainty weren’t received in polite society, and others were self-proclaimed poets, flamboyantly disheveled, flaunting exaggerated melancholia. Victoria’s mind was of a practical bent and found their affectations quite foolish; as she did a hundred times a day she wished with all her heart Lord M was present. _He was so quick to recognize absurdity_! _Is_ , she quickly corrected herself, _is._ _He is not gone for good. He loves me, I know he does. He will return._

Victoria appreciated the warmth and camaraderie she found with Albert and his friends in the depths of her heartache. They accepted and welcomed her into their midst, providing most amusing distraction from that which otherwise consumed her every thought, and for that she was grateful.

It was easy enough as the evenings wore on for Victoria to prolong that warm honey feeling and drink enough of the heady wormwood liqueur so that her movements grew loose, her posture more languid, her eyes heavy-lidded. Then she would become aware of that old familiar heavy feeling low in her stomach, a tingling began lower and spread until she felt hot and almost frantic with a need she couldn’t define. _Except that it is another kind of longing, another way of missing him_ , she instinctively understood. Her husband would escort her to her chamber on most evenings, becoming more frequent over the weeks. Customarily he would turn her over to the ministrations of her maid and leave her after kissing her tenderly on the forehead. On other occasions when he was particularly preoccupied, that duty was delegated to his brother.

Victoria had always found she had much more affinity with Ernst, and gradually discovered he had both perceptiveness and compassion as well as charm and a light-hearted manner her husband quite lacked. She knew he wasn’t the same as her husband and his companions, that there was a different dynamic between them than she felt from those young gentlemen who were not attracted to women, and it was quite intoxicating to be in the presence of a man who found her attractive, yet was safe. As he led her to her chamber she clung to his arm perhaps a bit more closely than unsteadiness alone required.

“I think you are tipsy, Cousin,” he said teasingly, steadying her with a hand around her waist. “Too much champagne?”

“I had no champagne, Ernst. Only absinthe, and that with sugar. It is like drinking medicine, not at all intoxicating they told me.”

“Ah, absinthe. That does indeed change things.” Ernst chuckled. He opened the door to her apartment and held it wide for her to step through.

“Come in, Ernst. You may wait with me until my maid arrives. I’m sure she will be here shortly.” Victoria swayed unconsciously, walking directly into her bedchamber.

He hesitated followed her in. “I will happily take this opportunity to talk with you. We never see each other except in such lively company, I am afraid your poor cousin goes quite unnoticed.”

Victoria sat down on her window seat and patted the space beside her.

 “I think we have been remiss in permitting you access to absinthe. It is a well-known aphrodisiac and best reserved for a certain class of woman. And for the marriage bed.” Victoria’s eyes widened but she said nothing.

“So how are you, Cousin? My brother seems very happy in his marriage. What about you?”

“Albert is a quite satisfactory husband, Ernst. You told me once he was worth ten of you and while I cannot agree with such a comparison, he is a kind husband and becoming a good friend to me.” She blinked slowly and Ernst was powerfully struck by her appeal. _My brother would be a fool, except he is who he is. At least he is kind to her._

“’A good friend.’ That is something. One cannot have too many friends. May I?” Ernst indicated the space next to the Queen and she tucked her skirts in to make room.

“Speaking of friends, we have not seen Lord Melbourne at the palace in many weeks. Since your wedding, I believe?” Ernst did not misread the deepening blush, or the shadow that passed across her eyes, and he could not mistake the sudden moisture beading her lashes.

“That is correct. Lord Melbourne is our Prime Minister and has many responsibilities. Lord Bentinck is quite contentious lately, I understand. And Lord Stanley is as always a challenge. Even in his own party there are firebrands like John Russell to contend with.” Victoria parroted the excuses she heard daily, trying to lend them authenticity.

“And these important matters arose suddenly, since your wedding, that they consume so much of his attention only now?” Ernst asked smoothly, and allowed himself a small smile when she had no response. “Victoria…” He lifted one of her hands. “May I ask if there is any other reason your Lord M no longer appears at Court? My brother, perhaps? Our uncle? He was treated most severely by Uncle Leopold when we first arrived. Has someone perhaps made him feel as though his presence was not welcome?”

“I – I don’t know what to say. Certainly there were those who criticized our relationship – our working relationship – in the past.”

“If that is all, I can assure you that once that marriage contract was sealed any interest our uncle took in affairs here quite abated. As long as he can write you reams filled with advice, he is content to have Albert securely married.”

“Thank you, Ernst, but I assure you Lord M would not be intimidated by our very ambitious uncle.”

“Be that as it may, cousin, here you are and here he is not. Albert has told me that he quite looked forward to Lord Melbourne becoming his mentor, to instructing him in the ways of your British constitutional system and even –“ Ernst grinned. “- in matters of social address and custom. Our Albert is not the most easy man.”

“He did?” Victoria’s voice rose in surprise. “Albert wanted to learn from Lord M? I thought he quite despised him. He said he is not serious.”

“Victoria.” She looked up in surprise at Ernst’s suddenly serious tone. “I also know because he has told me, Albert wishes for you to be as happy with this marriage as he is, and for that reason also he would like you to have everything you desire. Every _one_ you desire. Is there anything I can do to be of assistance? Speak to Melbourne perhaps?”

Victoria’s shoulders shuddered and she dropped her face into her hands, sobbing, quite undone by her brother-in-law’s tone of compassion.

“I don’t know, Ernst. I have asked him – send notes every single day – I do not know why he does not come. I thought after – never mind what I thought but at least, he is still my Prime Minister, and my friend. I miss him so, Ernst!”

“Do I have your permission to see what I can do to persuade him?” Victoria didn’t answer, only sobbed harder. “I hope you know if there is any service I can render you, any advice I can give you from my vast experience –“ He grinned cheekily. “- you need only ask. Now or after your Lord M returns.” Ernst put his arm about her shoulders and sat companionably with her as she cried.

After she was undressed Victoria lay in the dark. She felt the langurous effects of the liqueur, a looseness in her limbs and tingling warmth in her belly. _What would it be like to have him in my bed? To feel his warmth next to me, his arms about me, to have him kiss me in the dark? To be able to touch his face? To feel his hands on me…touching me...all over?_ She turned on her side and wrapped herself around a pillow, holding it close as she might a lover in the night. While she slept, tears trickled unnoticed down her face.


End file.
